


The Least Enjoyable Task

by OgdensOldFirewhiskey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Angst, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canon Compliant, Grief/Mourning, Hatred, Lily Evans Potter & Severus Snape Friendship, Missing Scene, Occlumency (Harry Potter), POV Severus Snape, Pining, Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25718512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OgdensOldFirewhiskey/pseuds/OgdensOldFirewhiskey
Summary: ""I suppose because it is a headmaster's privilege to delegate less enjoyable tasks," said Snape silkily. "I assure you I did not beg for the job."Did the boy imagine that these memories would endear him to Severus? Did he imagine that Severus would feel pity as he watched and experienced the rapid slideshow of his trauma? If so, he was sorely mistaken, because Severus felt nothing but cold disdain for his inability to shield himself from the pain of these memories as Severus had grown so adept at doing.Severus hates every single moment he has to spend delving into the boy's mind, hates witnessing his misery, and worst of all, the possibility of seeing her in his memories unexpectedly. It is a matter of the boy's ineptitude and impertinence that this torture must continue.Canon-compliant, Snape POV fic, spanning chapters Occlumency to Snape's Worst Memory in OoTP.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	The Least Enjoyable Task

**Author's Note:**

> “Let’s go again . . . on the count of three . . . one — two — three — Legilimens!”  
> A great black dragon was rearing in front of him. . . . His father and mother were waving at him out of an enchanted mirror. . . . Cedric Diggory was lying on the ground with blank eyes staring at him. . . .  
> “NOOOOOOO!”  
> He was on his knees again, his face buried in his hands, his brain aching as though someone had been trying to pull it from his skull.  
> “Get up!” said Snape sharply. “Get up! You are not trying, you are making no effort, you are allowing me access to memories you fear,  
> handing me weapons!”  
> Harry stood up again, his heart thumping wildly as though he had really just seen Cedric dead in the graveyard. Snape looked paler than usual, and angrier, though not nearly as angry as Harry was.

“And be warned, Potter… I shall know if you have not practiced…” he said acidly, glaring at the boy.

The boy looked distracted, clearly still enraptured with what he imagined he had figured out about the Department of Mysteries. “Right,” he mumbled, barely looking at Severus before he had swung his schoolbag over his shoulder and hurried toward the office door.

Severus turned quickly to the Pensieve he had stored behind him. It made him uneasy for his memories of her to be vulnerable like this, to be outside the walls of his mind’s impenetrable protection in this way. But he had decided that the possibility of the boy breaking into his mind and finding them there was far too risky an endeavor, no matter how unskilled and unable to appreciate subtle forms of magic Potter might be.

He began replacing the thoughts carefully. It was an odd sensation, to remove the memories of her from his mind completely; it left him feeling unmoored, as though he were a ship in rough waters at sea, with no memory of where or how he had thrown down the anchor.

As his memories of her flooded back into his mind, he breathed heavily. He both cherished and despised their return. On the one hand, he could not imagine a version of himself that did not include her, but on the other, the pain and regret for all that had transpired pricked him like knives, never duller or less painful no matter how many times he remembered.

And so he was trapped, destined to never forget her but to feel nothing but pain at her memory.

And now the boy had been forced upon him in his ungainly tightrope walk.

He felt his mouth twist in disgust. That this job, this despicable task, had fallen to him was unfathomable. How had he agreed to it? The reasons Albus had given him felt much weaker in the light of the hour he had just spent delving into the boy’s pathetic little mind, tolerating his insolence and insubordination and utter and complete ineptitude.

Legilimency was a dark and intimate craft by nature; penetrating another’s mind allowed one to experience memories and emotions firsthand, to feel twinges of what the other was feeling and remembering. He did not want to share any such intimacy with the boy, did not want to feel the sting of humiliation at his family’s mistreatment of him, the dull despair at the dementors flying across the lake, the thrill of fear as the dragon reared its scaly head.

Did the boy imagine that these memories would endear him to Severus? Did he imagine that Severus would feel _pity_ as he watched and experienced the rapid slideshow of his trauma? If so, he was sorely mistaken, because Severus felt nothing but cold disdain for his inability to shield himself from the pain of these memories as Severus had grown so adept at doing.

He hated him for it. Hated the terror and shock he had felt as he stared into Diggory’s lifeless eyes. Hated the juvenile, shallow, panicked elation that had filled him as the Ravenclaw girl approached him beneath the mistletoe.

More than anything, he hated him for forcing him look upon her face again so unexpectedly, staring out of the enchanted mirror, wrapped arm and arm with _him_. That the boy’s longing and aching happiness in staring at her did not feel so very far from his own was uncomfortable, irritating.

He had not expected this. He did not think the boy had any memories of her, had not imagined that the boy might have seen her in the enchanted mirror stationed at Hogwarts so long ago. When he had begrudgingly agreed against his better judgment to teach the boy, he had not once considered that delving into the boy’s mind might mean feeling the boy’s pain at her agonizing absence, might mean gazing upon her as she stood behind a pane of glass, present but completely unreachable.

The idea that the boy had deliberately shown this memory to him, knew somehow what it would do to him was almost too much to bear.

“I think it would be best if the boy continued his Occlumency lessons with someone else,” he said delicately.

“Oh?” replied Albus, looking up from the parchment he had been reading to glance at Severus with a knowing glint of amusement in his eyes. “Has something happened?”

“This is too high a risk, Dumbledore,” he snapped. “Surely you must realize that? The boy is incapable of closing his mind. The Dark Lord will penetrate it with ease. He will realize that I’m training Potter to close his mind, and I do not relish at the thought of what he will do when he makes this discovery.”

Severus had decided this was the best choice of attack, the one most likely to appeal to Dumbledore’s protection for his plan.

“It is a possibility,” Albus conceded. “Though we knew that from the outset. But what, I ask, do you imagine is the alternative?”

“Find someone else. Minerva, perhaps,” he suggested delicately.

“You know as well as I do that Minerva is not well-practiced in Occlumency, Severus.”

“Filius, then.”

“Do you think Filius will take kindly to our explanation as to why Harry must learn Occlumency?” Albus replied, with the infuriating air of a teacher leading his student patiently to the correct answer.

“Filius is trustworthy, is he not?” asked Severus, his temper flaring. “To whom do you imagine he will divulge this information?”

Albus sighed. “It is not that I believe Filius to be untrustworthy. You are as aware as I am that Filius intends to remain uninvolved in the war effort at present. I do not think he would delight in me dragging him headlong into a situation so central to the cause, and so close to the eye of Lord Voldemort. Perhaps you think otherwise?”

“You teach him,” he suggested finally, failing to keep the anger from his voice. “The risk between us is the same, and the boy would learn much better if it were coming from you.”

Albus peered at him over his half-moon spectacles. Severus felt suddenly as though his reasons for coming here were spelled across his face, though of course his mind was closed.

Perhaps his reasoning was plain enough that Albus did not need to penetrate his mind to decipher it.

“Did something happen during your first lesson?” asked Albus, and Severus despised the gentleness he heard in his voice.

“Nothing,” he snapped. “He is impertinent, insolent, and insubordinate, and has no intention of learning anything I attempt to teach. He will not learn, and I am exposing myself for nothing.”

“You are able to deduce all of this from a single lesson?” asked Albus, and there was an edge to his voice now. “I was not aware that you were learned in the art of Divination, Severus.”

“You have not explained why you cannot teach him,” Severus seethed.

“I have already been patient enough to explain this to you once,” said Albus, though he sounded impatient now. “Am I to understand that you have forgotten, or, as sharp as you are, did not comprehend my reasons?”

“You ask too much of me!” he finally exploded, his lip curling. “You ask me to teach the boy, who is his father in miniature, a skill which is beyond his capabilities.”

Severus thought he detected a hint of disgust in Albus’ face.

“Your refusal to teach Harry Occlumency, then, is about James Potter,” Dumbledore repeated. “Despite all of the reasons you know it is imperative that Harry learn to close his mind, you refuse to do it because of his resemblance to his father?”

“It is not—”

“I should think,” continued Dumbledore, cutting across Severus’ attempt at rebuttal, “that you are much too old, much too clever, and much too adept at controlling your emotions, Severus, to allow a petty schoolboy rivalry to affect you so. Let us be transparent. What is the real reason you do not wish to teach him?”

Severus pressed his lips together. He knew that Albus knew his true reasoning, and he felt no desire to confirm his suspicions aloud. “I take this to mean that you will not teach him in my stead.”

“Unless you give me good reason, then, no,” said Dumbledore, still staring with that evaluative look of his. “For all of the reasons I have already given you, I do not think it wise for Harry’s mind to be opened in my presence. As there does not appear to be any other suitable candidate to teach him, the task then falls to you. I trust that you are more than capable of putting your differences aside.”

Severus stood. “Then I have nothing more to say. I will continue to teach him, as you have demanded I do. But I warn you, the boy’s mind will remain an open book to the Dark Lord. He is already perseverating on the Department of Mysteries. I merely hope you have a plan, Dumbledore.”

He turned and walked from the room, refusing to glance back lest he see any sign of pity there.

And so their lessons continued. They became rather predictable in their pattern.

Severus siphoned her from his mind and stored her in the Pensieve on the shelf behind him. The boy was resistant, incompetent, and unable to block any attempt at penetration Severus leveled at him, no matter how much time he gave him to gather his defenses, no matter how much he had allegedly practiced the week before. He continued to bear witness to more trivial and sniveling memories the boy had experienced, feeling flashes of his emotions.

He hated his incompetence most of all, for it prolonged the time he had to spend sitting in his mind with him. Severus despised every moment he spent in the boy’s mind, every moment he had to see a scene from his miserable life. And still, Severus continued to uncover more and more troubling visions hovering at the surface of the boy’s mind – of the Department of Mysteries, of Rookwood delivering crucial information to the Dark Lord.

Their lessons took on the beat of a funeral drum, as they marched toward what felt inevitable – that the boy’s mind, woefully exposed, would be like putty in the Dark Lord’s hands whenever he decided to enact his plan.

“You have not improved,” Severus growled. “You are being deliberately obtuse, refusing to practice out of imagined self-importance.”

“I’m not,” the boy growled back at him, his jaw set in a way that reminded him quite suddenly of Lily. “I’m _trying_ , I just don’t know how!”

He truthfully did not care if he were trying. He cared only that it stop, that he stop being tortured with this task. 

“I do not believe you practiced,” he criticized. “And if you did, it was utterly useless.”

“I _practiced_ ,” he retorted with gritted teeth. “Emptying my mind at night is a bit different than doing it now.”

“Do you think that the Dark Lord will be waiting for the moment when your defenses are highest to attack?” he sneered. “Do you imagine he will wait for you to feel ready before he penetrates your mind?”

“No,” he replied mutinously.

The thrum of the funeral drum beat harder. Snape felt twinges of envy as he watched a rather large child eat heaps of ice cream, felt the emptiness of abandonment as he watched Weasley sitting with his other friends, felt exhilarated sadness as he watched Black fly away on a hippogriff.

It wasn’t until Potter breached his own mind using a Shield Charm that the beat of the funeral drum changed tempo. Suddenly he felt Potter’s presence, the boy’s mind clawing against his own as stupid, pathetic memories of his bleak childhood danced through his vision.

“ENOUGH!” he felt himself scream, ejecting Potter from his mind with force. His hands were shaking as he repaired the jar Potter had broken when he stumbled backwards. He had not expected that Potter would ever be able to penetrate his mind. Nobody had been able to in a very long time. He felt exposed, raw, like a wire without coating. Unconsciously, he touched his hand to the Pensieve, to where she was sitting observing them both.

Potter could not have seen her. There wasn’t anything in his mind of her for him to see.

The boy, too, looked shaken, and was staring at him with something less of the pure revulsion that usually lived on his face. That the boy might feel pity for _him_ was disgusting, unbearable, wretched.

How he hated these lessons.

“Who were the boys who were hitting you?” asked Severus snidely. He could not help himself from twisting the knife whenever he had sensed a memory that the boy found to be particularly humiliating; he wanted to let the boy know that he had seen, to chip away at his impenetrable arrogance.

“My cousin’s mates,” the boy replied icily. “D’you want to know their names? Invite them to tea, perhaps?”

“Manners, Potter,” he chided. “Let’s try again. _Legilimens!_ ”

And then Severus was in his mind once again. He felt squirming guilt as he watched Gilderoy Lockhart attempt to sign photographs in a hospital ward; he felt a great swooping sensation in his stomach as he plummeted toward the earth from a broomstick. He felt a cocktail of terror, wonder, and terrible grief as a ghostly form of Lily emerged from the end of the Dark Lord’s wand and told him to wait for his father…

“NOOOO,” the boy was screaming.

Severus lifted the spell wordlessly, feeling incredibly shaken himself.

“You are making no effort!” he spat, feeling uncontrolled fury that the boy had made him see her again. “You are useless, incompetent, undisciplined –”

The boy looked mutinous, his face white, hands shaking. “I’m _trying_!” he insisted. “Tell me what I’m doing wrong instead of telling me how useless I am, for a change!”

“What you’re doing _wrong_?” he said dangerously, his voice still shaking with rage. “Your mind is weak, you are allowing your emotions to overpower you. You need to master yourself, Potter, if you have any hope of shielding yourself from the Dark Lord!”

“Master myself?! Like you’re doing now, then?” Potter spat.

Severus hated him. “Leave my office,” he said, his voice still shaking with anger. “We will resume on Monday.”

“Fine,” the boy replied and he did not pause to look at him before he stormed from the room, impertinent as ever.

Severus gripped the edge of his desk, his knuckles white.

He had never known that some form of Lily had appeared that night in the graveyard. The other Death Eaters had always spoken about the evening in clipped tones, with few details, for the Dark Lord grew angry whenever it was mentioned. Dumbledore had never given him an elaborate recounting either, and so Severus had never fully gleaned what had transpired.

Some ghostly form of her, then, had come back. She had spoken to the boy, had said to wait for his father…

Severus was not a spiritual man. He did not spend very much time thinking about what would come after his life was over. In truth, he would have suggested that nothing at all was waiting for him in death.

But if Lily had returned, somehow… the implications were whirling in his mind furiously. Did this mean she had some awareness, some knowledge of what was happening in life? Did she know that he had tried to save her, had tried to make it up to her? That he was spending his evenings with a boy who was the clone of his despicable father, all for her?

He didn’t know if the thought was comforting or horrifying.

He suddenly couldn’t stand it anymore, couldn’t stand another foray into the boy’s mind and what he might find there. He didn’t want to bear witness to any more of the boy’s tragedy. All of it was so tiresome and tedious. The more of the boy’s tragedy and sadness and loneliness he experienced, the more he hated him for it. Severus knew, deep in his soul, that the boy was as arrogant and big-headed as his father before him, and that he must be deliberately showing him these memories in an attempt to evoke some sort of sympathy in him.

Severus had no sympathy to give. Whatever ills Potter imagined he had faced, it was nothing to that which Severus had endured and overcome, nothing to that which Severus masked from the world on a daily basis. That Potter’s tragedy was so transparent meant that he was too weak to cope with it, as Severus had.

That Severus bore no small weight of the responsibility for Potter’s misery and upbringing was inconsequential.

“Get out, get out, I don’t want to see you in this office ever again!” he bellowed, his voice shaking with rage and panic. He felt wild, out of control, as he hurled a jar of cockroaches after the boy’s retreating form, no longer caring whether he inflicted bodily harm.

The boy had infiltrated his memories. Had seen the very worst of them. The questions were whirling through his mind like a hurricane.

How long had he been in the Pensieve?

How many memories had he seen?

Had it only been the one in which Severus had found him? Or had he seen more?

Had he seen the one where Severus had stared at her from across the playground?

Or the one where she was laughing merrily with him in the library as they joked about Slughorn’s latest party?

What if he’d seen the one where he watched her dancing with _him_ on the grounds by the lake, the setting sun casting golden beams of light into her pretty red hair as she glowed?

Severus nearly retched.

The boy could _know_. And if it were in the boy’s mind, it could be in the Dark Lord’s as well, which was tantamount to a death sentence. Would the Dark Lord piece it together, piece together what Severus’ longing stares after Harry Potter’s mother might mean?

Severus took several calming breaths. He tried to reason with himself. He had not been gone for very long: The matter with Montague had been resolved quickly. There was not enough time for Potter to have seen them all. He could have seen one, maybe two more than the memory he’d discovered him in, and that was all.

He tried to comfort himself with this knowledge, but the unresolved question would not abate: Had he seen enough to deduce that which Severus had never spoke aloud to another living soul?

A quiet rage washed over him. That the boy had delved into his deepest and most private sanctuary, had contaminated his own mind with his presence when nobody else had done… he felt filthy. Dirty. Wrong.

He hated him. He despised him to his very core. That he would not have to delve into his mind anymore was a blessed relief, no matter how the end had come about.

And yet it was with a small feeling of emptiness that he realized any opportunity he’d had to witness new, different memories of her had gone with the boy.


End file.
